Category: Terminator Films

A Detailed Look at Selected Moments from the Terminator Genisys Trailer

After months of silence and rampant speculation, and tons of totally unconfirmed story details which have caused some fans to prematurely bury Paramount’s reboot of the Terminator franchise; we finally have the first Trailers, both Domestic and International. I have chosen a selection of screen shots out of the 600+ I took to discuss elements shown to us by Paramount in their first trailer for next July’s release. They will be discussed in the order they appear in the trailer.

So let’s get cracking.

Aerial H/K’s over Ash Heap of L.A. and Enviorns

The opening shot shows a burned out Los Angeles and Environs, an ash heap of destruction, painted in an almost noir-like lack of color. This perfectly captures a daylight look at the wasted, nuked, visions of the future described by Jim Cameron. Three newly designed aerial H/K’s move through the scene towards the towering, shattered, spires of the Los Angeles metroplex. How this connects to the other Future War scenes we don’t yet know but it sets a tone of desperation, something some would argue that was missing from RoTM and Salvation. I’ll discuss machine redesigns later.

John Connor Brings Mounted Plasma Weapon to Target

Here John Connor (Jason Clarke) prepares to fire a mounted Phased Plasma Weapon, behind him we see for the first time on film the red laser nets marking the place of battle to be at least in part a Human Detention Camp. You can also notice the beautiful purple nature of the phased plasma bolts from T1 and T2 is back. It looks like the Resistance will be using both scavenged tech, and modified human tech made Plasma capable.

The Future War from Above

This looks like Cameron’s Future War or at the very least as close as we are going to get unless Cameron does re-imagine the series after the rights return to him in 2019. On the right we see waves of endoskeletons, and coming in from above and the ground on the left human resistance forces. It is clear from the helicopter that humans use both conventional and plasma weaponry. It is quite possible that in this future humans find it hard to replicate/procure/manufacture plasma weaponry on helpful scale.

We can also see the laser nets, but the detail I find most interesting is the crystalline/angular designs of the machine buildings. This kind of design was prevalent in Cameron’s sketches of machine architecture so it’s very nice to see it fully realized on the screen.

There’s been quite a bit of talk about Terminator: Genisys in the last week from actor Jai Courtney who is playing Kyle Reese in the film which hits July 1, 2015.

He’s talked about the films POSSIBLE rating based on the film they shot and their not being any f-words in the script as likely to be PG-13. I shouldn’t need to remind anyone how dark and gritty a film can be with that rating. I will also remind you that the film is still being edited, sound designed, digital effects created and fine tuned etc. and thus for obvious reasons the film itself has not been submitted for a rating from the MPAA.

He also mentioned that it was kind of funny working with the endoskeleton actors in that they were people dressed in performance capture suits. This has me very excited as such technology really has a chance to bring the endo armies of Skynet to life in a way that will make them seem more real than ever before.

For those who are worried about that meaning there was no puppetry work at all, we have really no information either way but I’d say that there would still be puppetry work in certain shots and circumstances. I think Terminator and Jurassic World both sequels I’m greatly looking forward to using performance capture technology for Endos and certain Dinos respectively it makes sense to embrace the advancements in technological outgrowth and film making enhancements.

Terminator: Genisys, which hits July 2015, has been shrouded in secrecy with a very tight set and very few images being leaked online which in the days of smart phones is pretty much unheard of and welcome if you ask me. In fact we’re about 10 months out and have very little officially confirmed news regarding Genisys which is a “soft reboot” of the Terminator series.

Expect that news to be rectified in the near future.

Let’s not forget that it is also the first part in a trilogy of films, the plan being to shoot the sequels back to back a la Back to the Future 2 and 3.

The films have to be shot and released in this truncated time period because the rights will revert to series creator Director/Writer James Cameron at that time.

Paramount Pictures have been very very secretive about all of the filming for the upcoming Terminator film. They quickly terminated a youtube account that put up videos showing the filming of future war scenes. And the only leaked photos since has been from three nights of shooting:

1: A redo of the police chase in T1.
2: A setup at a hospital.
3: A SWAT style van and a police cruiser with Kyle and Sarah stunt doubles.

Now word has come out that filming is about to wrap with on location shooting at Oracle Headquarters in Redwood Shores in Redwood City California.

Could this be Cyberdyne Systems?

Oracle is the second largest computer software developer in the U.S. behind Microsoft. And the CEO of Oracle is none other than Larry Ellison father of producers Megan and David Ellison. I’m not the only one to look at the campus and come to the possible conclusion that it might be used as Cyberdyne Systems in the upcoming Terminator film.

There’s been an awful lot of scuttlebutt and discussion about T:G as recently there have been photographs from two scenes being filmed for T:G which have appeared online.

Firstly there was a scene I believe will be revealed to be at a children’s hospital which caused a stir because it showed Arnold as the long term Terminator, Kyle Reese, Sarah Connor and the actor hired to play an older John Connor all in the same scene.

The second behind the scenes pictures showed the Kyle and Sarah stunt doubles in the back of a vehicle that looks like it could be doubling for a truck like the S.W.A.T. from T2. They’re shooting a scene where they shoot out of the back of the van at at least one Police cruiser.

T:G which is shooting in New Orleans (Jurassic World is also shooting there now after a successful shoot in the Hawaiian islands) is also drawing intrigue by the lack of information about the plot and the time periods. There have been hints that the soft reboot will be re-telling events from T1 but differently.

After looking at some articles from last month I think we can put together a general idea of if nothing else the through-line of events in Terminator: Genesis!

As I suspected the videos from late night filming on Terminator: Genesis did not last long, I’m very glad that I took the care that I did to preserve them so that I could bring you this report.

Filming is now going great guns on Genesis, slated for release July 1, 2015. Just recently some short clips of filming in Louisiana have popped up along with stills showing cars used in replicating a certain sequence from The Terminator.Arnold has stated that the actions is as Big as the action in T2and as recently as yesterday character actor J. K. Simmons called the script a “smart re-imagining”.

It seems unsurprisingly that Paramount and the others players behind the planned Trilogy of films are taking things very very seriously indeed. Including taking down the videos I’m about to talk about not once but twice at a minimum. One of the main reasons is that Paramount et all don’t want behind the scenes footage leaked period, however when one is talking about the shooting of FUTURE WAR set segments any moment could be a huge spoiler.

However, being that the resolution is 240p I felt that at the very least I would take a few shots to give you some idea of the first T1-T2 styled Future War action since T2:3-D Battle Across Time!

When Justin Lin was circling Terminator 5 he spoke about some of the ideas he had for the film and this script was born. All told I spent the better part of year in research, writing and the polishing Rebirth into the script I am releasing today. Hopefully it’ll help tide fans over until the increasingly awesome sounding Terminator: Genesis hits next July!

So it’s a huge day for fans of the Terminatorfranchise after a long quite spell two bits of Terminator news hit at the same time and I’ve got to say I’m really quite stoked by the news.

And the Director is…

Terminator has always attracted big name directors for instance I distinctly remember a time when Ridley Scottwas said to be in the mix for directing duties on Terminator 3.

Rightt now it looks like Alan Taylor(Game of Thrones, Thor: The Dark World) has come out on top at the end of the selection process and is in final negotiations to take the directors chair for 2015’s Terminator.